Directed by Alex Gabbay
Three Muslim students face a choice between their faith and their future.
On the beautiful island of Lamu on the eastern coast of Kenya, three young footballers have just graduated from school summa cum laude, but cannot get hold of the school certificates they need for university or to find jobs until they pay their hefty school fees arrears. Until then, the certificates remain locked in a rusting filing cabinet in the headmaster's office.
They could get work in Lamu's booming tourist industry, which has brought an influx of pop stars, models and glitterati-and much needed income-to the island over the past 15 years. But tourism has also introduced alcoholism, drugs and soaring house prices that are threatening the local Islamic culture and way of life.
One of our young protagonists, Arafat, isn't worried. His faith is strong enough, he claims, to withstand the lure of the West, and he's happy to earn money providing boat services for tourists on the dhows that ply their trade along Lamu's coast. But his schoolmates, and fellow footballers, Adbulkarim and Abubakar, are reluctant to get involved with the tourists whose dress and habits they regard as corrupting and opposed to Islam.
But how else will they earn enough to secure their precious certificates-and their future? And can the West really offer a model of globalization that will win over Lamu's young men? What future will our three young protagonists choose?
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